Irshad Manji’s ‘Lipstick and Ijtihad’

A Complete Failure.

www.ExamineTheTruth.com

It’s been a couple of years now since Irshad Manji first launched her bold initiative of the liberal reform of Islam, as she unveiled to the world her lipstick and Ijtihad project. I think it is time to make an assessment of just how much progress has been made.

I would encourage everyone to listen to the Dinesh D’Sousa’s debate, in which he takes a frank look at this issue. Dinesh makes some eye opening discoveries as to just how successful the Western lead liberal reform of Islam has been, you can click here to listen to the debate:

At 16 minutes and 12 seconds, Dinesh stated:

Dinesh D’Sousa: “look for liberals in the Muslim world, now I think you know as well as I do, that we have found all eight of them..."

Lores Rizkalla: (laughter)

Dinesh D’Sousa: “They have joined our side... it hasn’t made one bit of difference! And the reason is because liberalism in its modern sense has no constituency in that part of the world.”

Lores Rizkalla: “Right of course.”

Dinesh D’Sousa: How many Salman Rushdies are there?

Lores Rizkalla: “There is one.”

Dinesh D’Sousa: “Yea right. That’s my point.”

D’Sousa is right. One must admire Dinesh D’Sousa’s intelligence – he was not fooled by Irshad Manji’s bogus death threats and email scam, nor was he swayed by her charm and wit. Finding people who believe as Irshad Manji does in the Muslim world is like finding a needle in a hay stack. You will be hard pressed to find perhaps 7 or 8 at the most in your entire life time. ExamineTheTruth.com has sited 4 key failures of the lipstick and ijtihad project:

ý Manji’s aggressive reform has produced hardly any converts. She has not been able to produce a single learned well respected fundamentalist Muslim to switch over to her camp to the best of my knowledge.

ý Not a single mainstream Masjid (Mosque) in America has invited her to speak, or have embraced her liberal views. Virtually all mainstream Muslim organizations have shunned her. America is suppose to be a key strong hold for this type of liberation movement, because if it does play in America, how will it play in the Muslim world?

ý Vast majority of Muslims view Irshad Manji as a “traitor” or “sell out” (she even jokes about it!). “Your reputation precedes you”. How can a person expect to win the hearts and minds of a population that view her to be an “Uncle Tom” and some kind of scoundrel? Is this some kind of joke?

ý Irshad Manji hides from debating with qualified Islamic apologists and what she calls ‘radical Imams’. Rather, she preys after inexperienced and unlearned Muslims to debate with while Islamic apologists/Imaams dominate the Masjids (mosques) all across America without challenge from Manji. Irshad Manji can accept ExamineTheTruth.com’s debate challenge anytime, but Manji refuses and is on the run.

Fundamentalist Islam----X--- > liberal Islam

The change is just not happening, and there are no signs that this trend will change anytime soon. Irshad Manji’s lipstick and ijtihad project has for the most part, has only attracted like-minded people, and help mobilize them under a single banner. Nothing more. However, Muslims did not need Dinesh D’Sousa to tell us that Irshad Manji is just waisting people’s time and money. We knew it already, and we were patiently waiting for Islam’s enemies to figure it out, and Dinesh D’Sousa was the one of the first ones to blow the whistle.

So you might be asking, ok… how did Muslims know Irshad Manji was going to fail? The answer is actually quite simple – Irshad Manji’s Ijtihad project lacked all the essential elements for any project to be a success, which are:

ü No defined strategy on how to achieve her goal – to reform Islam.

ü No explanation on *how* her strategy is going to be successful, and achieve her goal.

ü No standard on how to measure success.

ü Not a single mile stone defined for project Ijtihad! And of course, no project plan. This way people will not be able to find out that Manji’s project is not producing the desired results. This way she can continue to give a rosy picture when in fact, project Ijtihad is achieving nothing.

ü Get an independent opinion.

Make no mistake about it, without these key elements, it is not a matter of if, but rather when your project will be doomed for failure.

In conclusion, one must marvel at the credulous fools who could invest their time and money and precious resources on such a project! I believe history will look back and see Irshad Manji as just a passing fad, as the Manji bubble is bursting right before their very own eyes, and she will go down as just another clown from the boogie town.

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Go back to Silencing the false propaganda of Irshad Manji

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